Michael Moore Shows His True Colors in SiCKO.

Well I better start with announcing my biases before I even begin this review. I despise the type of health care we have in America. It is over priced and over regulated, because government works hand in hand with big business. On the same token I do not support universal or socialized medicine.

With that out of the way, I have seen all of Michael Moore's movies before and enjoyed all of them. I was a "Green" back when I saw most of those movies so naturally I agreed with them as well as liked them. Now that I have become an anarcho-capitalist I have gone back and watched a lot of his movies and still enjoyed them though noticing logical fallacies, misrepresented documents, gotcha style interviews and far left agenda. He does on the other hand ask great questions, gets you to think and keeps it entertaining all at the same time. However in the case with SiCKO, this is the exception to the rule. It was long, drawn out and filled with dry humour. Most of the movie is spent talking to Americans about health care horror stories or why they moved to other countries for socialized medicine.

What was interesting was the fact that Michael Moore acknowledges that some government programs including Medicare was a dismal failure and HMOs was a result of government and business working together and not free-market forces but then spins it so it looks as though it was the problem t.

Another thing Michael Moore does is overload you with the information on once side of the argument and ignore the others then claims that he is the counter balance to what we see in the media. In the case for universal health care Moore should of them taken MY side of the argument which never gets talked about whereas socialized medicine is continuously being pitched on any news or current event TV program out there.

During his visit to France he speaks with a group of former Americans in a restaurant where they tell him the marvels of socialism. Free health care, free child care, free higher education, pays 65% of sick pay, and even how the government does your laundry. Now as anyone who knows about France knows that it is the model of socialism. There is almost NO market. Most of everything in France is owned by the state or heavily regulated and taxed. They even have state ran media where government owns the press. They have no freedom of speech to the point where people are thrown in jail who have less favourable opinions. We've all heard the stories where holocaust deniers are tried and jailed for their fringe wacko conspiracy theories. Now I do not agree with 9/11 conspiracies or holocaust denials but imagine the U.S. Government rounding up these 9/11 Truthers and sending them to jail for terrorism denial. I know that sounds savoury to a lot of right wing fanatics I know but freedom of speech should be extended to all regardless of what they say. Because if a 9/11 Truther gets in office, then they can round up those who deny 9/11 "Truth" It goes both ways. Is that what you want to be like?

France's health care isn't what it seems once you watch SiCKO. Take for example when 15,000 elderly women died in the care of French hospitals because they lacked proper air conditioning in one month alone back in 2003. It also turns out that France's system has been running on a HUGE deficit due to poor administration and loopholes in their payment system and massive amounts of bureaucratic hurdles to approve small things as ordering new hospital beds. Wait... Didn't Michael More accuse Republicans of being evil for running up deficits and debt but let the French socialists off the hook?

We can only assume Mike was in France before the last presidential election. A poll taken right before that election said that 85% of French citizens were unhappy bout the direction France was headed. So much so that Jean-Marie Le Pen (a holocaust denier, anti-semitic, anti-islamic far right conservative) had people around Europe afraid he might win the election. Thank God they didn't and elected a centrist.

Moore also showed Canada and UK hospitals but still ignores the waiting line problems in those countries where you go into a hospital and essentially wait in line every step of the medical process. It was so bad in Canada that a doctor by the name of Jacques Chaoulli, a 53-year-old French Canadian physician who in June won a health-care-related lawsuit against the government of Quebec in which the courts ruled that the state monopoly on healthcare was not only immoral but illegal and stating that “Access to a waiting list is not access to health care.” Chaoulli was under fire at the time for providing free in home care to patents whom he felt needed treatment immediately and now heads a group where they help people who wish to jump the long Canadian lines for people who are in dire need of care for a fee.

(http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/dick200512200840.asp)

Moore correctly points out that government and corporations working together in creating HMOs are most of the reason why we have a disease industry that allows insurance companies to scam their clients but insists we need more government involvement in healthcare ignoring it was government's problem to begin with. He also fails to mention government inefficiencies in the same socialized healthcare systems he shows in the movie.

While most people who go see this movie expect to hear Michael Moore's pitch for "universal" healthcare will be in for a shock. Though the movie is about the broken healthcare system in America, he's clearly not stopping at socialized medicine rather, a Marxist society altogether and trying to alleviate fears of communism and socialism as well. One scene shows a old Russian propaganda film where grain field workers are singing about filling their quota to get their reward while Michael Moore exposes some of the existing so-called socialized systems in America failing to realize that the post office (though lazy and inefficient as it is) is NOT a socialized system but rather a government owned corporate monopoly that doesn't use a cent of taxes to fund itself. God only knows if they just legalized competition how cheap FedEx, DHL or UPS could charge for the same yet better service.

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Michael Moore really bombed in trying to pull together people from different sides of the political spectrum to come together for socialized medicine and shot his own cause in the foot. This movie was by far his worst. Trying not to fall asleep was one of my main tasks while trying to enjoy this movie. As a long time fan of Michael Moore I can honestly say to other Michael Moore fans not to rush out and see this movie, rather wait for the DVD. It's really not worth the $8. I also encourage those who are looking to socialize medicine to steer clear of making references to this movie whenever possible because of it's Marxist leaning ideals and awful case for socialized medicine.

2 out of 10 stars.